


This Day's Blessings are not Over Yet

by JoanneValjean



Series: You Are Not Alone [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: A/U, Gay Men Having Sex, Homosexuality, Javert Gets Rescued, M/M, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoanneValjean/pseuds/JoanneValjean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Valjean escapes to the Petit-Picpus convent with Cosette.  Javert is not happy, and swears that he will catch the "devil."  Ten years later, Javert once again meets Jean Valjean, who saves him from a watery grave.  Jean Valjean takes Javert in and tries to get reacquainted with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Never Shall Yield

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me in advance.  
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  
> FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER:
> 
> https://twitter.com/JoanneValjean

Prologue

 

Javert gripped the bottle in his hands as if it would run away from him. Like it could. If it could, it probably would run away from the angry aura of Javert. It would run away, far away, to a damn convent, like Jean Valjean.  
Monsieur l’Mayor indeed! Javert laughed inwardly at his own foolishness. So fooled had he been at the sight of the kindly mayor of Montreuil that he had thought nothing. Though, he supposed, it had always been there, the spirit of Jean Valjean. It had started when Javert had seen Monsieur l’Mayor lifting the cart of the old man who fell under it. The cart must have been heavy, and the lifting had reminded Javert of Jean Valjean. At first, when he had written the letter to Paris to inform them of his suspicions, he had been poised and ready to arrest. He would have no qualms about it, for he hated Jean Valjean for being so elusive. But, when the letter had come back while he was overseeing executions (unusually, they were his favorite pastimes), he had crumpled it up in his hand in fury. He had gone to Monsieur Madeleine and told him of his transgression. Like the saintly man that he was known to be, Madeleine had forgiven him and told him t5o go back to his regular duty. It had not been a happy event for Javert, who thought that his guilt would crush him like he thought that he deserved. At Champathieu’s, that man that they had thought to be Jean Valjean, trial, Madeleine had showed up and declared that he was 24601 and then ran to the hospital to visit the dying prostitute, Fantine. Javert had confronted him, lost him, and then had gone to the gates of Paris, for Valjean dared not to return to Montreuil. Valjean had shown up, of course, with the prostitute’s daughter, Cosette. She was a dirty little blond thing that was skinny enough that you could see her bones sticking out awkwardly. Valjean had climbed the walls of Paris with the child and escaped to somewhere, but nobody knew where for sure. Javert thought that he had most likely gone to the convent, which was one of the only places where Javert was morally bound to not arrest or attack him. Now, all Javert had to do was wait for Valjean to leave the Petit-Picpus convent so that he could snatch him up and show him what true justice was.  
In the meantime, Javert was coddling a bottle of hard whiskey to comfort himself over the loss. He felt humiliated and demeaned.  
He never drank, so why should he? What would it accomplish? Nothing. A bottle offered no comfort. That was a person’s job. Unfortunately, at the moment, Javert had no people who cared for him or wanted to be associated with him. That had been the Mayor’s job……

******************************************************************

Javert fumbled with his cravat with one hand. At the moment, the other hand was feebly undoing the buttons on Madeleine’s trousers.  
Their lips caught in a frenzied kiss that was filled with undeniable passion and energy. Their teeth clacked together a few times, but the two men didn’t care. Madeleine’s lips were soft, Javert noted, and tasted of….strawberries? How strange.  
Madeleine looked down at Javert once the offending articles of clothing were removed with large brown eyes. In those eyes, Javert could see only love. “Are you sure you want this?” Madeleine asked, punctuating the sentence with a chaste connection of lips.  
“Yes, God yes,” Javert answered, tackling Madeleine back onto Madeleine’s soft bed. The blue fabric was inexpensive yet quite comfortable for their activity. Javert deftly slid the coarse fabric of Madeleine’s trousers as Madeleine did the same to him. Javert didn’t notice, nor did he care, that Madeleine failed to remove his shirt and instead only buttoned it tighter.  
They were both already completely ready. Somehow, they had already agreed that Javert was the one to be fucked as Madeleine rubbed the small bottle of oil over his entrance.  
Madeleine thrust in with ease over and over again. At first the stretch hurt and Javert felt like he was being torn apart by wild beasts. Not a wild beast, he thought, is Madeleine, for he looked out for my care. It was true: Madeleine was looking with only love and empathy into his lover’s eyes. “Are you okay?” Madeleine asked with worry evident in his voice as Javert cried out.  
Javert shivered. It had not been a cry of pain, it had been a cry that he made because something actually felt good. “Yes. I’m fine, just please go back. God, please, you must!”  
When they both reached their climaxes, Madeleine fell forward onto Javert’s chest. Javert breathed heavily and in time with Madeleine’s dehydrated pants of tiredness. It had been wonderful, the loss of innocence. He could not say he was completely innocent to the act. He’d grown up around it, but he had never participated in it. This was his first time, and he had been glad for it to have happened with Monsieur Madeleine. In fact, Javert loved him.  
*****************************************************************  
Javert only gripped the bottle tighter as he recalled that. Yes, indeed, he had most certainly been in love with Monsieur Madeleine. The man’s muscled arms, chest……..it was all too much for him to be able to resist. It had not been all of the man’s physical beauty, however, that had brought Javert to his knees. Indeed, it had been the man’s kindness. Javert had never known kindness. He’d not known kindness when his mother, a gypsy princess accused of murder, gave birth to him in prison. He’d not known kindness when he was adopted by a rich family who never bothered to pay any bit of attention to him. He’d not known kindness in Toulon, where he started his work as an enforcer of the law. Neither had he known it when he started his police work in Montreuil. He’d only found kindness in Monsieur Madeleine, who loved him as a man loves a woman.  
He would go to hell for the act, Javert reasoned. In the bible, which he read fervently and had mostly memorized, it strictly prohibited the act of homosexuality. It damned homosexuals to hell. If Madeleine’s love was hell, it was the sweetest hell he would know and Javert wanted to stay. He would be condemned in society if anybody found out. He would be evicted from the police force, not that many of them could say anything without being hypocrites. Javert had seen the events of homosexual rape in Toulon, where the prisoners were starved for pleasure from women and resorted to using each other as toys. It had disgusted him, and he swore to himself that he would never be that way. It had not turned out that way, though, and Javert realized that he didn’t mind it one bit.  
When he had found out that his lover was 24601, however, his world came crashing down. He immediately felt an immense hatred for the man that he had once loved and had shared his first moments of passion with. He felt a sense of betrayal. He’d been bamboozled like the fool that he now knew that he was. Of course. Javert thought and reasoned that Valjean had been using him so that Javert would have no moral reason to arrest him. Big mistake, 24601, Javert thought. Javert still had a legal obligation to arrest him.  
Javert uncorked the bottle, finally giving in to the call of the bottle. The whiskey burned the back of his throat and reminded him why he didn’t drink. It was too sweet of a release of his grip on reality, however, to care that much.  
When he had finished the contents of the bottle, he walked out of the bar and down the snowy streets toward his modest Inspector’s home in Paris. It was his home now, as it would be for the rest of his life. That’s what he believed to be true. He might as well get used to it. Now that he was away from Montreuil, he thought, he could forget his affair with Monsieur Madeleine. Big mistake. He would never and could never forget. He knew this.  
In anger and frustration, Javert seized his bottle and threw it against the brick wall on the outside of his house, not caring when it shattered into smithereens. He didn’t care when a shard came back and cut his hand. He didn’t care when the red, life-giving substance started flowing freely out of the cut in his hand. He didn’t care that his blood stained the hem of his coat and left a trail on the ground. He didn’t care about the horrified look his new housekeeper gave him as she took his coat and ushered him into the house.  
Javert sat down in his new bedroom and let out an exasperated sigh of frustration and anger, coddling his newly bandaged hand against his chest. He almost felt sorry for this pathetic state that he was in.  
He grasped a small, leather-covered book that he kept in his writing desk. Flipping to a new page, he wrote the following:  
"I will catch that son of a bitch and show him the hand of justice. I swear this by God. I swear this by the stars."

He was getting drunk, that he could tell by the messy and unruly way that his handwriting was scrawled across the page, the letter varying in size and shape and switching between his normal cursive handwriting and his rarely-used print handwriting.  
Javert crawled over to his bed and lay down. He fell into a sleep where he dreamed of convicts, chest brands, the salty taste of the sea, and, most of all, Jean Valjean.


	2. Till We Come Face To Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javert sees Jean Valjean in the marketplace while Valjean is being attacked by Thenardier. Old feelings are reawakened.

Ten Years Later……………Paris, France, 1832 

The days flowed together for him, a mixture of arrests, faces, and pleading. The desperate pleas of innocence and indignance were meaningless to him, and they always would be. Javert didn’t care what they had to say. He never did. Monsieur Inspector had lost whatever vague sense of empathy or caring that he felt the moment he went to Toulon. Javert lost his empathy the day that he met Jean Valjean, or, as Javert most often referred to him, 24601.

()()()()()()()()o_o()()()()()()()()

The convicts moved in one line, their dirty and salty sea water soaked faces kept looking down at the wet concrete. They would cringe at almost every step, for they were all barefoot and the “clothes” that they were given, if you could even give them the dignity of being called clothes, were so thin and cheap that even in summer, the air made a chill.  
The reason they looked down was Javert. Even though he was young, only 18, it was said, the young man had a frightening composure and stance that made even the murderers that were sentenced to the galleys quake in fear. The way he glanced at you, the way his eyebrows curled into a frown and his mouth twisted into something between a smirk, scowl, and frown all at once, was very intimidating.  
Only one criminal dared to look up.  
24601 was in prison for 19 years. Originally, it was only five for stealing a loaf of bread and breaking the baker’s window. It had been extended when he had tried to escape from the galleys multiple times. While he was aware of the……..activities that surrounded him, none of his fellow members of the chain gang ever dared to even look at him with sinful thoughts. Valjean was all beefiness and bulked-up muscle, an intimidating presence even among the hardened criminals that were stuck in the prison, even the ones who had been pulling ships and building up muscles for years.  
He dared to look Javert in the eye one day.   
Javert took out his truncheon and held it in front of 24601. “Retrieve the flag,” he commanded, gesturing to the flag of France that lay forgotten on the ground. The mast had snapped when they were pulling in the ship and the convicts were stepping all over it disrespectfully….truthfully, they were afraid to step out of line.  
Valjean stooped and, with great effort, hoisted the heavy hunk of wood over his shoulder. Valjean grunted with the effort as he dropped the flag at Javert’s leather-booted feet.  
“Now prisoner 24601, your time is up and your parole’s begun,” Javert snarked at the sweating man before him who now wore an unmistakable grin on his face.  
“Yes, it means I’m free!” Valjean answered, quieted excitement and happiness in his raw and dry voice, made so by the years of salty sea air.  
Javert made his trademark scowl. “NO! Follow to the left to your itinerary! This badge of shame will show until you die,” Javert scowled, handing the yellow parole slip to the excited man before him. “It warns you’re a dangerous man!”  
“I stole a loaf of bread! My sister’s child was close to death and we were starving….”  
“-You will starve again, unless you learn the meaning of the law.”  
It was Valjean’s turn to scowl now. “I know the meaning of those 19 years….a slave of the law!”  
“Five years for what you did, the rest because you tried to run! Yes, 24601….”  
“My name is Jean Valjean!” the freed man interjected.  
Javert hissed, “And I’m Javert. Do not forget my name! Do not forget me, 24601!”  
While Jean Valjean climbed the steps to get out of his 19-year-prison, Javert watched him with hateful eyes. Javert decided, I that one fleeting moment, that he just didn’t care anymore for the prisoners.

()()()()()()()()o_o()()()()()()()()

One day, the usual routine that Javert had become so accustomed to was broken by a brawl near the Café Musain. An older, middle-aged, bourgeois man was being attacked by none other than Thenardier, a shady ex-inkeeper, and various members of Patron-Minette, a gang that was terrorizing Paris, most especially San Michel. When Patron-Minette saw Javert coming towards them, they scattered and stood straight when they realized that there was nowhere to go. The bourgeois man huddled close to a girl in a rather annoyingly large bonnet and modest purple coatdress, shielding his face from Javert. The girl looked up at her father with large blue eyes, confusion evident in them.  
Javert addressed the situation. “Another brawl in the square, another stink in the air! Was there a witness to this? Well, let them speak to Javert!”  
Walking up and down the line of the gang members, which included the bushy red hair of Monsieur Thenardier and……..well, Madame Thenardier was just plain trying to seduce Javert into letting them go by pulling down the collar of her thin rag-dress to reveal more of what little cleavage she had. They were all looking down, like convicts……..like Jean Valjean, 24601……..no Javert, don’t you dare think of him, he scolded himself.  
Javert continued, this time turning to the man and his daughter. “Monsieur the streets are not safe, but let this vermin beware! We’ll see that justice is done.”  
Monsieur Inspector surveyed the gang again. “Look upon this fine collection crawled from underneath a stone. This swarm of worms and maggots could have picked you to the bone! I know this man over here, I know his name and his trade, and on your witness, monsieur, I’ll see him suitably paid.”  
When Javert turned around quickly, he expected to see the man and his daughter huddling together. Instead, he was only greeted with an empty space where they had been, and the faint scent of perfume that the girl had left. He could see the hem of the girl’s purple dress and some of the girl’s golden locks fraying behind her as the pair ran around the corner. “Where’s the gentleman gone, and why on earth would he run?”  
Thenardier piped up, slightly lifting his head up. “You will ‘ave a job to catch ‘im, he’s the one you shoul’ arrest! No more bourgeois when you scratch ‘im than’ that brand upon ‘is chest!”  
Sudden realization dawned on Javert and hit him like the fiery sword of the angel guarding the Garden of Eden. “Could it be he’s that old jailbird that the tide now washes in? Heard my name and started running?” After a short yet thoughtful pause, he continued, “All the omens point to him!”  
Thenardier was obviously eager to go….probably to do more pickpocketing and other forms of thievery. “In the….absence of a victim, dear Inspector, may I go? An’ remember when you’ve nicked ‘im, it was me ‘wot told ye so.”  
Javert put his face very close to Thenardier’s, and was reminded of the closeness that he had had with Monsieur Madeleine……..no Javert, you need to focus, he reprimanded himself. “Let the old man keep on running! I will run him off his feet!” he announced. When he noticed the crowd that gathered like a swarm of flies to spoiled bread, he yelled, “Everyone about your business, clear this garbage off the street!”  
Inwardly, he was cursing himself. He had let Jean Valjean get away again.

()()()()()()()()o_o()()()()()()()()

Later that night, Javert returned back to his house and went immediately to his chamber rooms. He sat down at his writing desk, the one that had been a gift from Monsieur Madeleine for the first Christmas….Javert shook his head, effectively ridding himself of the memory. He wanted to forget Madeleine, everything that he had done with Madeleine, everything Madeleine had done to him, but he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried. Madeleine had been his first….first in passion, and the first that he had shown true emotion and care for. Javert sternly had to remind himself quite often that Monsieur Madeleine was not real. Jean Valjean was. It was just a masquerade, Javert reminded himself, a ploy to fool him.  
Javert picked up the small leather-bound booklet that he still had and thumbed through its pages. On one of the first pages was scrawled that message that he had written in his drunken state as a reminder to himself of the promise and oath that he had to uphold……  
“I will catch that son of a bitch and show him the hand of justice. I swear this by God. I swear this by the stars.”  
He ran his thick fingers over the wobbly, size-varied, clumsy letters once again and remembered the burning anger that he had felt on that day. It had consumed him like a fire, and that night, he dreamed of taking Valjean up against a wall with his truncheon and literally showing him the hand of justice, the hand of the law. Javert now shivered at the thought. Even he was not so cruel enough to do something like that. Javert knew what people thought of him, and, to be honest, he didn’t really care too much what the other people thought. Maggots. Slime. Disgusting idiots who can’t see that he’s not just a man in a uniform. That’s why he never could find comfort. Nobody could see past the uniform. The only erson had been Monsieur Made-stop it Javert! he scolded again. In that one instant, Javert realized something.  
He still loved Jean Valjean.


	3. I Will Be Waiting, 24601

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javert is discovered as a spy by Les Amis and sentenced to execution by being shot by Jean Valjean, who is in disguise. Jean Valjean releases him, and Javert begins to doubt himself. Javert, in desperation, throws himself into the Seine in an attempt to escape from the world. Valjean saves Javert and takes him in.

Valjean’s heart started to beat a million times faster when Javert entered the scene. Sure, it had been beating very quickly when he was attacked by the con artist, the con’s wife, and the gang, but that had been adrhenaline. The rush of energy that he had suddenly felt when he caught a glimpse of Javert’s face was a rush of a memory, and a good memory at that. True, it may not have been a recollection that he cringed at the thought of, but still, it was a good one.

**************************

He gasped and fell back as he finished inside his lover, who also lay gasping in raw pleasure beneath him. Valjean pressed a kiss that was chaste, compared to what they had just finished (literally) to Javert’s brow. “I love you,” he murmured. “You know that, right?”  
Javert still was gasping on his back, his green eyes sparkling with fiery delight and excitement. Javert’s gypsy genes came out most at this moment and this, Valjean decided firmly, was when he was most beautiful. People could say what they wanted, but, in his eyes, he would always be beautiful, regardless of their past.  
“I know,” Javert finally managed to pant out. “I….love….you….too.”  
Valjean offered a smile and kissed Javert’s lips, then left a trail of soft and sweet kisses down his lover’s throat. Javert still was gasping. When Valjean kissed Javert’s chest, he could feel the man’s heartbeat. He bit the area, and Javert screamed. Valjean looked up in concern. “Are you okay?”  
“YES, GOD YES!” Javert screamed. “JUST DO IT AGAIN FOR GOD’S SAKE!”  
Valjean, surprised at Javert’s sudden passion, just complied and continued his journey till he reached Javert’s….well, you know, his candlestick. He kissed that and elicited another moan from Javert, who was obviously not willing to wait any longer.  
That was the second and last time that they made love………………….  
Still, Valjean cringed at the thought of it. Both times, their meetings had been hasty and passionate. Personally, Valjean had always felt guilty that Javert didn’t know who he really was. It was almost like he was taking advantage of Javert. He wasn’t, to be honest with you. Valjean actually had forgiven Javert and, although it took a bit of time, he fell in love with the man who was desperately hunting him. That lead to their first encounter, if you would call it that.

**************************

Again, Valjean cringed at the recollection of their first encounter. He truthfully had not meant to hurt Javert. In fact, he was surprised that Javert was a virgin in the first place. Not that Javert seemed like the one to have sex with everybody he saw, but still….he was too handsome in Valjean’s eyes for nobody else to have wanted to take him. Instead, that glorious burden of a task had been bestowed upon Valjean. When Javert had cried out and screamed, Valjean’s head had reeled when he realized that that was Javert’s first time. Truth be told, it was Valjean’s first time, too. Valjean had never given himself to anybody, woman or man, not even in Toulon. Nobody in Toulon had even dared to look at him that way. Valjean, like Javert, was an imposing presence. Together, they seemed like they would be a perfect match. If Valjean’s fellow prisoners from Toulon were there, they would have been trading francs or bread crusts or whatever they had used to bet. Even in Toulon, you could say, Valjean felt a connection with Javert. That connection was reawakened that day when Javert intervened.  
()()()()()()()()o_o()()()()()()()()  
They meet again at the barricades. Javert was tied up in a noose, with dried blood running down the side of his face. It was ugly, and Valjean knew it. Valjean was assigned the task of assassinating Javert and disposing of said person’s body. It was a disgusting task, but it needed to be done. Valjean went in with the students thinking that he was going to kill Javert, but those were not his intentions.  
Valjean lead him to the dank, dark, and downright creepy alley behind the café. He reached into the pocket of his stolen National Guard uniform-another thing that he can be arrested for, Javert mused-and flicked out a knife. The blade was curved, silver, and small, but it was still a knife. It still could have killed him.  
Javert had actually been expecting this. He had expected to die at the hands of a criminal, or at least by doing his duty. How right he was, he thought as he stumbled around in the alley. Jean Valjan was going to kill him.  
“We meet again,” Valjean said.  
Javert picked up his tired head and looked at him tiredly, a sense of finality in his eyes. He was calm and ready to meet death. “You’ve hungered for this all your life,” he growled. “Take your revenge….how right you should kill with a knife!”  
The ex-criminal advanced on him, and Javert closed his eyes and prepared for the cold darkness. Instead, he felt the rope tying his hands together go slack as Valjean deftly slipped the blade through the rope. “Get out of here!” Valjean hissed.  
“Don’t understand,” Javert said, confused. He was supposed to be dead, his brain screamed. He should have been lying in agony in his own blood on the dirty ground. Instead, he stood, confused, as Valjean told him to leave.  
“Clear out of here!” Valjean repeated.  
Javert realized that Valjean would not take no for an answer. “Once a thief, forever a thief. What you want, you always steal,” he chastised. “You would trade your life for mine….yes, Valjean, you want a deal. Shoot me now for all I care! If you let me go, beware! You’ll still answer to Javert!”  
Valjean shook his head and smiled. “You are wrong, and always have been wrong,” Valjean revealed. “I’m a man, no worse than any man. You are free, and there are no conditions, no bargains or petitions. There’s nothing that I blame you for. You’ve done your duty, nothing more.”  
Javert started to stumble for the exit to the alleyway. Valjean stopped him by saying, “If I come out of this alive, you’ll find me at number 55 Rue Plumet. No doubt, our paths will cross again!”  
Then, Valjean whispered, “Go!” and fired his gun just above Javert’s head. Javert could feel the bullet zoom over his head and shivered. He always had known that Valjean was a good marksman, and was currently thankful for that.  
Valjean turned and went back to join the rebellious students, while Javert left the alley and went towards his home. He had a lot on his plate and needed to sort things out.  
()()()()()()()()o_o()()()()()()()()  
Javert stood straight and composed on the parapet over the swirling Seine. The river was rumbling, rolling, and roaring like a great beast filled with rage. It was not completely unlike Javert’s emotions and thoughts, which were just as erratic and tumultuous. He’d handed in his resignation from the post of Inspector, because he knew that, in a minute or so, he wouldn’t need that worthless title any longer.  
He couldn’t think straight. The only recurring thought that ran through his troubled mind was, Valjean set me free. He set me free. Why? I wronged him. I chased him. I never gave him a moment’s peace, so why would he set me free? Why? Why? There is no answer. I can’t arrest him without acting immorally, for he granted me my life. I can’t let him go free without acting unlawfully. What do I do? What will I do?  
Javert murmured to himself, “Who is this man? What sort of devil is he to have me caught in a trap and choose to let me go free? It was his hour at last to put a seal on my fate, wipe out the past and wash me clean off the slate! All it would take was a flick of his knife! Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life. Damned if I live in the debt of a thief! Damned if I yield at the end of the chase! I am the law, and the law is not mocked! I’ll spit his pity right back in his face. There is nothing on earth that we share…………….it is either Valjean or Javert!”  
He sauntered putting his feet in front of the other, dangerously close to the edge of the bridge, dangerously close to falling into the water and ending his miserable life….  
Javert continued. “How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me? This desperate man whom I have hunted, he gave me my life….he gave me freedom. I should have perished by his hand! It was his right. It was my right to die as well. Instead I live, but live in hell.”  
The water seemed to pick up and join the fury and confusion of Javert’s words. “And my thoughts fly apart. Can this man be believed? Shall his sins be forgiven? Shall his crimes be reprieved?”  
Javert turned and looked down at the water. “And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles. The world I have known is lost in shadows. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know that granting me my life today, this man his killed me even so?”  
This time, Javert turned his eyes up to the heavens, seeking an answer or a sign to his dilemma. The stars were dark and not even a little glimmer emanated from them. “I am reaching, but I fall, and the stars are black and cold as I stare into the void of a world that cannot hold,” he gulped.  
In Javert’s eyes were the presence of a madman, a demon, a wild fire of rage and consumption that threatened to do something that Javert knew deep down, that he would regret. “I’ll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean. There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on!”  
And with that, Javert let his body drop slowly over the edge of the bridge, racing closer and closer to oblivion. The filthy, rushing water was quickly coming up to meet him. Javert expected immediate death.  
CRACK!  
Javert audibly gasped as he heard the cracking of his thigh bones, which he had landed on. It was a hot, searing pain that jolted through him like a twisted form of adrenaline, coursing through his veins in white-hot energy. He could also feel the water rushing into his nose and filling his lungs, and he waved his arms frantically in an attempt to bring himself to the surface, as his legs were broken and incapacited. He’d changed his mind. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to die.  
Javert’s cells finally grew weary and lost all of their energy to fight back. He gave up, and prepared for the agony that he now knew was coming for him. He could feel his body floating, almost as if there was no gravity holding him down or as if he were on a fluffy cloud. Javert could feel the water get shallower and shallower, so his crazed mind assumed that the shore was coming closer to him. At least it would be easier to find his body, he thought.  
As he hit the sand at the shore, he winced and gave a weak cry as he coughed up gallons upon gallons of dirty river water. His lungs and vocal cords were damaged and broken, and he could not call for help or salvation. Another part of the cry was given to the jolt of pain that he felt as his now-broken shoulder hit a rock on the shore. He closed his eyes and waited in agony for what seemed like a lifetime. “Please Lord,” he moaned in his weak, dry, raspy voice, “let me die.”  
Instead, he suddenly felt strong arms sneak under him and pick him up, cradling him like a newborn babe. His mouth opened as if to scream, but water dribbled out and only made his soaked shirt cling tighter to his skin.   
The person leaned closer to his ear and whispered into it, “It’s not your time yet, Javert. Not yet.” The sound of the voice only made Javert let out a hoarse scream as he unsuccessfully tried to lift his arms and attack his savior. It was a voice that he would recognize anywhere. He’d chased the owner for almost 20 years, and he had memorized every single detail of its owner.  
His savior was Jean Valjean.


End file.
